Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 pushes mobile content creation closer to professional territory with features that finally feel built for serious creators.
At the Snapdragon Summit 2025 in Maui, Hawaii, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 Mobile Platform, calling the new chipset a breakthrough in mobile processing power and artificial intelligence. The company described it as the world’s fastest mobile system-on-chip, designed to enhance creator tools and gaming on devices powered by the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5.
The platform is built around the third-generation Qualcomm Oryon CPU, which delivers clock speeds of up to 4.6 GHz and offers 20 per cent better performance than its predecessor. Senior vice-president and general manager of mobile handsets at Qualcomm, Chris Patrick, said the focus is on personalized AI experiences, saying: “With Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, you are at the centre of your mobile experience. It enables personalized AI agents to see what you see, hear what you hear and think with you in real time.”
The platform introduces what Qualcomm calls “agentic AI” capabilities, powered by the Hexagon NPU, which delivers 37 percent faster performance than the previous generation. This enhanced AI processing enables on-device assistants that can learn from user behaviour and take actions across applications while keeping personal data stored locally. The Qualcomm Sensing Hub includes a personal knowledge graph and Personal Scribe functionality, designed to enable more proactive AI experiences.
Gaming performance also receives significant attention, with the next-generation Adreno GPU offering 23 percent more performance while reducing power consumption by 20 percent. The new architecture features Adreno High Performance Memory with 18 MB of dedicated cache and supports Unreal Engine 5 technologies, including real-time, hardware-accelerated ray tracing. These upgrades aim to deliver console-quality gaming on mobile devices.
Content creators gain access to Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec support, making the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 the first mobile platform capable of recording in APV format. The feature enables near-lossless video quality with greater control in post-production, including highlight adjustments, shadow detail and precise colour grading. The platform also debuts Snapdragon Audio Sense technology, which combines piezoelectric MEMS microphones with intelligent processing to deliver professional-grade audio recording, wind noise rejection and HDR audio.
The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 also raises the bar for connectivity. The X85 5G Modem-RF system supports peak download speeds of up to 12.5 Gbps and upload speeds of 3.7 Gbps. The FastConnect 7900 Mobile Connectivity System adds Wi-Fi 7 support, delivering up to 40 per cent lower power use and 50 per cent reduced gaming latency.
Flagship devices featuring the new platform will begin launching later this year. The Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 will debut in smartphones from major manufacturers, including Honor, iQOO, OnePlus, Oppo, Samsung, Sony and Xiaomi, with releases expected in the coming days. CGMagazine will provide hands-on coverage as soon as review units arrive, so stay tuned for full reviews in the weeks ahead.
